Page 18 of Fangs with Benefits

‘’Sup?’

‘Look out your window,’ I tell him, a little too loud before I remember that I don’t need to yell into the phone for him to hear me. From the rectangle I know to be his office, Dylan’s messy head appears, followed by his exceptionally wide shoulders. He squints at me, and I wave dramatically from where I stand below.

I haven’t been inside Dylan’s office building, but he spends more time there than I think is reasonable or healthy for a mortal with a limited number of years to live. As a werewolf, Dylan will live longer than his human colleagues, but only by seventy years or so.

‘Stop working,’ I tell him. ‘I thought people only pretend to work on Fridays.’

‘Who taught you that?’ he asks. His job is in finance where, apparently, the work never ends.

‘Molly,’ I admit.

‘Right.’ Dylan retreats from view, but I hear rustling on the other side of the line, so I assume he’s packing up his belongings. I hope so, at least, because for all the things I’ve told him about Molly, the news I have today is the most confounding and intriguing of all.

‘Can we get Indian for dinner?’ I ask.

‘Sure, honey,’ Dylan mutters. ‘Though your insistence on sitting in restaurants when you won’t eat anything is bizarre.’

‘It’s the smell that entices me,’ I say, then step out of the way of a large dog leading a woman behind it. It’s not that I am afraid of large animals, only that they could bite me any time, and that sounds deeply unpleasant. At the manor, I had many litters of cats over the years, though their deaths were an aching reminder of the fragility and inevitability of mortality. The sting kept me from integrating with the human world sooner, but in my reticence, I’d forgotten the delight in discovering something enigmatic about humanity.

Molly, for instance.

‘Christ–hold on,’ Dylan whispers, then hangs up without saying goodbye. He emerges from his office building a few moments later, a shorter man speaking animatedly behind him. He looks younger than Dylan, and dwarfed by him, but Dylan has that effect on most people. I haven’t met many werewolves, but each of them has been a tall, muscular creature. Dylan is no exception.

I can hear their conversation, but Dylan’s companion is saying words about the US economy that I don’t understand. Plus, I remind myself, it’s rude to eavesdrop, so I pull at a loose thread on my suit. Dylan’s suits are nicer than mine–expensive, tailored and in more colours than grey. He promised to buy me one if I lasted a full month in the corporate world.

Dylan wishes the man a cordial goodbye as he approaches me, and once his back is turned completely from the man, Dylan lets his face fall and leads us down the street, murmuring something about this nepo-baby prick.

‘How were the numbers today?’ I ask.

‘Volatile,’ he says.

‘Speaking of, it seems you don’t like your colleagues very much,’ I note, not for the first time.

‘True about me. I like some of them, hate more of them.’

‘And that one the most?’

‘Bingo. He shouldn’t even be on our team, but his dad is a senior partner. Thus…’ Dylan waves his hand in a vague gesture. ‘Luke Lemming,’ he says like the name is a curse. ‘His brother is somehow worse.’

We descend the steps to the subway, and I feel a burst of pride that I don’t even need Dylan to remind me how to retrieve my train pass on my phone. There have been many such instances in the last two weeks where I believed myself to be hopeless in learning technology, but learning it is like riding a bike. The more you practise, the easier it becomes.

‘Is this Luke incompetent?’ I ask. The word is only slightly nicer than what Molly called my work performance: pathetic.

‘He’s just always buzzing around. He constantly has ideas, and usually they’re smart and we have to work a dozen extra hours implementing them.’

‘And then he… goes home? Instead of helping?’ I am reaching for problems with this Luke Lemming, but he sounds like a valuable contributor.

‘No, he’s always getting dinner orders and making sure I’ve eaten. And he’s always bringing me coffee and trying to talk to me after work. Annoying ass.’

We step onto the packed train, standing amid all the warm bodies. The subway, like much of New York, is so full of smells and sounds–life around us and impossible to ignore.

‘I think he sounds nice,’ I muse. ‘Sounds like he likes you.’

Dylan scoffs. ‘Luke is not into guys. I would know.’

I blink at my friend. I hadn’t meant that this Luke liked Dylan in that way, but his mind immediately going there is telling. He’s thought of it–probably been thinking about it. Dylan has had at least three boyfriends since he wandered onto my property ten years ago, but not so much as a date since retrieving me from my reclaimed estate.

‘Whatever, I’m not talking about Luke Lemming any more, it’s the weekend. He can’t invade my peace again until Monday.’